Prefabricated bathroom modules have been developed for residential, institutional and commercial buildings to make installation of bathrooms in such structures easier, faster, and less expensive. The modules are substantially self-contained so as to minimize the amount of work required to install the module. Bathroom modules are factory-equipped with a floor, walls, ceiling and bathroom fixtures, such as a toilet, shower, sink and vanity. The modules include plumbing connection points that inter-connect the building's water supply and sewage lines to the fixtures within the module.
In a conventional bathroom module that includes a vanity portion and a shower portion, as is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,713, the vanity portion typically contains cabinets, flooring, and fixtures which are best kept dry. The shower portion, on the other hand, gets wet during normal use or is sprayed with water or other liquids for cleaning. Such bathroom modules also have dams projecting above the floor between the shower portion and vanity portion to prevent water in the shower portion from traversing into and soaking the vanity portion.
One problem with conventional bathroom modules is that the dams prevent wheeled assemblies from moving easily between the vanity portion and the shower portion. Such wheeled assemblies include wheelchairs or walkers required by disabled bathroom module users, as well as wheeled cleaning devices, such as mop buckets and the like.
In one style of a conventional bathroom module, the vanity portion is designed to become wet, for example, for purposes of cleaning. A drawback with this type of bathroom module is that the dam requires drains be installed on each side of the dam to drain the entire bathroom module. The use of two drains can increase the cost of the module and increase the complexity of fabricating the module.
Accordingly, there is a need in this field for a bathroom module which is fully accessible to wheeled assemblies and which does not require installation of two separate drains. The present invention fulfills this need and provides further related advantages.